After a sumptuous trio of classic story ballets this season — “Giselle,” “Nutcracker” and “Romeo and Juliet” — Ballet Arizona executes a forward jeté into the 21st century with “Director’s Choice.” The concert is a three-course banquet of diverse movement styles with artistic director Ib Andersen serving as executive chef.

The program opens with guest choreographer Alexei Ratmansky’s 2001 take on Camille Saint-Saëns’ “Le Carnaval des Animaux,” continues with a world premiere by Alejandro Cerrudo of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and climaxes with a reprise of Andersen’s acclaimed “Diversions” from 2010. Performances are Thursday, March 28, through Sunday, March 31, at the Orpheum Theatre in Phoenix.

Ratmansky, former director of the legendary Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow (2004-08), first choreographed his “Carnaval” for the San Francisco Ballet. It’s a merry parade of vignettes inspired by the animal kingdom.

“There is a lot of humor in the score,” Ratmansky says. “Saint-Saëns considered it a very minor piece and didn’t want it to be published (before his death). It was a little joke for his friends, but it turned out to be the most popular score by him. It’s very ironic.”

Composed in 1886, Saint-Saëns’ suite is often used to introduce children to the various instruments in a symphony orchestra. Its 14 short movements include “Kangaroos,” “Tortoises,” “Wild Asses” and “Aquarium.” The most familiar is a lush cello piece first choreographed in 1905 by Mikhail Fokine as a short ballet titled “The Dying Swan.”

“It’s a good way to show the company,” Ratmansky says, “because you have the lyrical diva for the swan, you have the aggressive male for the lion, you have little fast birds and friendly horses. It gives the opportunity for different personalities to shine. …

“It is a family-friendly piece. It will be fun for the kids, but I didn’t want to make it simplistic, so there are some references for adults to enjoy as well.”

“Diversions,” set to Benjamin Britten’s “Diversions for Piano (Left Hand) and Orchestra” (1942), earned Andersen acclaim when Ballet Arizona performed it in 2010 at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., as part of the Ballet Across America series.

“Responding to the fascinatingly changing colors of the music’s theme-and-variations structure,” New York Times dance critic Alistair Macauley wrote, “the choreography is formal, sophisticated, cool, with passages of brilliance for groups of male dancers and some male-female duets that occasionally disclose a surprisingly tender expansiveness. In terms of patterns, arresting images, varied use of stage space, constant changes of tone and musical attentiveness, this — using 20 dancers — is remarkably skilled dance-making.”

As for the middle course of this tasting menu, it will be a bit of a surprise — even to its creator.

“I try to never come to a place knowing exactly what I am going to do, because I don’t want to limit myself to my own ideas,” says Cerrudo, who was born in Madrid, Spain, and has been a dancer and resident choreographer with Hubbard Street in Chicago since 2005.

“I’m here for five weeks, which is quite a luxurious time for a choreographer for a 20-minute piece. The first week I wanted to get to know the dancers and let them get to know me and how I work in the studio. I wanted to play and see what are the good things that I can use from them, rather than me just imposing an idea.”

“I’m responding to how beautiful the atmosphere in the studio is,” Cerrudo says. “This is a classical company and I’m a contemporary choreographer, but I see interest in this new thing that is coming to them. They want to learn, and I love that. …

“In classical ballet, steps have a name, and you’ve been studying those steps for years and years and years. And what I do, I’m creating new steps, so you have to train your body in a very short amount of time to move in a certain way, which might be the opposite to what you’ve been learning to do all these years. It is a great challenge for them and for me as well, and it’s making us all grow.”

Reach the reporter at kerry.lengel@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-4896.

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